


invaders

by rosielibrary



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Aliens Made Them Do It, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-06
Updated: 2018-12-06
Packaged: 2019-09-12 18:05:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16877682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosielibrary/pseuds/rosielibrary
Summary: “Signs.”“Signs ofalien life.”“Carajo.”“Language, Sandra.”“Sorry.”(sandra jimenez belongs to lionbewwy on tumblr)





	invaders

You know when Stanford Pines gets that huge, beaming grin that lights up his entire face and you _know_ it’s because he’s got something unbelievable to tell you?

That’s the _exact_ face Sandra Jimenez finds herself staring at. Yeah, that one.

When he bursts onto the porch, struggling to keep hold of his various papers, Sandra pushes her Sunglasses of The Hour up her nose (yellow flower-shaped frames, she’s a style icon) and hops up to steady him before he goes flying off the porch steps. He looks down at her and _there’s the face_.

“I have something _incredible_ to show you!”

Well, not _quite_ unbelievable, but close enough.

“And what would _that_ be?” Sandra grins, attempting a nosy glance at Ford’s fistful of paper, which he promptly hides from her view and stuffs into one of his jacket’s endless pockets. She knows this expression well; it must be something _really_ great for him to—

Oh, well, he took her hand and now they’re running into the Shack. Sandra laughs as Ford haphazardly pushes the code for the vending-machine-secret-door-thing (she never quite got why _that’s_ a thing), leaving the vending-machine-secret-door-thing ajar as he tugs her downstairs.

“I was— looking into the— spacecraft in— the hill north of— town—“

“Ford, _mi rareza_ , slow _down_.”

Sandra pulls him back on the stairs and gives him a face. The arched brow, pursed lips, Face of Concerned Displeasure face.

“You’re going to do yourself an injury if you keep running and talking like this.”

“But the _signs_ —“

“The signs can wait ’til we’re downstairs and away from the risk of you biting your tongue off.”

Ford goes to stare witheringly at Sandra for blocking his exciting speech, but he sees her face and decides better. At this point, he knows not to challenge Sandra’s patented Face of Concerned Displeasure.

He hurries further downstairs and Sandra comes soon after, stepping into the elevator with him.

“So as I was saying.”

She teasingly nudges his arm and Ford chuckles.

“I was examining the composition of the spacecraft that crash-landed here, the one buried under the hill. Yes, it was a storage facility that has remained abandoned for centuries, but I like to double-check from time to time.”

“Because of course you do.”

He either misses that or ignores it and continues on, pulling the papers from his pocket.

“I took some notes on anything that was in disarray, and, as I expected, there was nothing. _Except_ —“

He thrusts one of the papers at Sandra excitedly, nearly knocking her sunglasses off her nose. Now inside, she props them atop her head and looks down at the paper, finding…. a slew of numbers and decimal points. She may have been an astronaut, but even this calculation is lost on her. Ford watches her face expectantly.

“Do you see?”

“Er… Definitely! Signs! Like you said.”

Sandra taps the paper with her forefinger, squinting down at a particularly long string of numbers.

“Signs.”

“Signs of _alien life_.”

“ _Carajo._ ”

“Language, Sandra.”

“Sorry.”

Ford’s eye-roll is almost palpable from behind his cracked glasses.

“Anyway. We have to get to the spaceship this instant so we can get a glimpse of some aliens!”

And with that, he is _off_ , pocketing the papers and grabbing a small pad of paper (“In case they let me draw them— who knows, maybe they’ll incinerate us before I get the chance to ask. Can never be too sure!”). Sandra decides this isn’t worthy of her sunflower glasses and gently places them on Ford’s desk, taking a more demure pair of red heart-shaped sun-specs from her bag as they head out on their Grand Adventure.

He babbles as they walk, as per usual, but Ford’s nearly as giddy as when Sandra saw him roll a perfect 38 in that funny graph-paper-and-dice-and-cardboard game he plays with Dipper. Nearly. He’s hopping over small puddles in the grass and balancing atop fallen logs in a one person goose-chase to the hill with said spaceship hidden underneath. Like a pimple, but with aliens possibly in it.

Sandra laughs— Ford’s reaching behind him and grabbing her hand, pulling her along until they finally reach the clearing of trees that lead to the hill. He turns and beams at her like a kid on Christmas before scaling to the peak. Her laughter dies in her throat when she finally reaches the top, taking in the crazy cracks in the cliffs (that’s a mouthful) and the town obliviously sitting beneath.

She squints. Sandra’s never really _looked_ at the cliffs before, but they look like… A candy with the two frilly wrapping ends. No, wait—

“It’s a UFO?”

“Yes!” Ford laughs, near incredulous, before looking back to the cliffs. “It crashed here millennia ago—“

Sandra’s heard this story, but lets Ford continue on anyway.

“— And while my partner, Fiddleford, and I scavenged the remains for parts, we never found _aliens_ here.”

He pushes a large rock aside and reveals a laddered hatch down into the hill— or, rather, the spaceship.

“Until now.”

Ford gallantly waves an arm down into the unattractive abyss and stares into it adoringly.

“I’m really astounded that there’s _life_ down there, Sandra. I’m so glad you get to experience it with me.”

As romantic as finding aliens in a dingy spaceship sounds, Sandra’s face flushes pink beneath her heart-shaped sunglasses. Rather fitting, now that she thinks about it— _no we’re here to find aliens, shut up._

He lets her go down the ladder first— ever the gentleman, though she wished he went first in case something large and tentacled grabs her leg. Ford would know how to handle something like that. Not like she _wouldn’t_ , but still.

It’s a silent descent into the spaceship, and when Ford makes it down the ladder, he hops to the ground in lieu of the last three rungs. He’d warned her about the long ride down to the actual spaceship, but when he pulls a magnet gun from his coat, Sandra decides to let him do his fancy maneuver down the pole (with the necessary “Hup!” beforehand) as she takes the conveniently placed rope ladder to the left of the death-is-certain-unless-you’re-Ford-Pines jump. He can handle _that_.

“Here we are. Isn’t it brilliant?” Ford’s voice echoes up to Sandra as she steps down to the ground.

“It’s… something, alright.” Sandra narrowly misses something wet dripping onto the top of her head. “You’re sure there’s aliens in here, Ford? Not just rats and airborne diseases?”

“Yes, Rorgac, I am certain the security bots are defective. Would you stop _proyangling_ for just one second?”

Now, Sandra’s ears may be faltering as she gets older, but she knows that’s not Ford’s voice. Especially since his mouth didn’t move, but just about everything else on his face widens in size as he realizes _he was right_.

“I am aware, Koosgirz, but I am also concerned about the surrounding humans of this area. Are you most certain they will not hear us?”

Three other voices— one deep, one raspy, and one incredibly _British_ for an alien— chime in with variations of “yes”. The first voice— Koosgirz, apparently. Wonder if it’s a family name— continues on, a touch of irritation in their tone.

“Are you making a funny? Right now? Humans have not touched this space in years. The last we heard, two young males came at least three decades ago and… “borrowed” equipment from us. But last we heard, one of them erased his memory of this location with his own invention and I located the other in dimension ERS-5. They are _not_ here.”

Sandra twists to Ford, who shrugs.

“I am afraid you may be wrong, Koosgirz.” The accented voice cuts through the rabble and the other four fall pin-drop silent.

“One of them is already here.”

Sandra swallows at Ford’s heart-in-his-throat expression, and the two of them start back-walking towards the ladder when—

“Or, rather, has been here. Look.”

There’s a metallic beeping noise as the alien seemingly scans something in the main chamber.

“There’s a small handprint on the agriculture shift button.”

“Dipper,” Ford breathes. “And here I thought he could flip whatever switch he wanted.”

The five voices murmur as they further investigate Dipper’s handprint on the button, assorted beeps and schwoosh sounds coming from the “British” alien’s device. Could aliens be British? Sandra’s seen lots of _Professor What_ , so she supposes they could be.

“This child’s DNA is not quite a perfect match, but there are several similarities to that of the man that stole from us, Yusdax.”

“I can see that,” Yusdax— the British alien— replies. “What was that male’s name again? They have the same surname.”

“Surname?”

“Last name, Rorgac. It is a common word, I assumed you would know something as simple as you are.”

“In their defense, Yusdax, “surname” is a more common word amongst the dialect of the voice you stole,” the unnamed raspy voice adds. “Ours are from this area, yours is from a different country.”

There’s an unpleasant moment of quiet. Sandra jumps when there’s a horrifying _screech_ harmonizing with a loud, electric bang.

Someone blows on the business end of an assumedly smoking gun.

“Do any of you have any more _funnies_ to make? Or will I waste all of this _arpolitzer’s_ melting pods on you?”

Silence. Yusdax slaps the barrel, sighing in aggravation at the _“arpolitzer’s”_ beeps of protest.

“Stupid thing is so archaic. Last of the old way’s technology that has a serviceable purpose.”

Sandra and Ford stare at each other, matching thudding heartbeats of dread in their ears. Sandra points at the ladder, her jabbing finger growing more jabby with her fear, but Ford obviously doesn’t take the hint. Ever the curious and somewhat idiotic one, he steps towards the open archway from where the aliens’ voices originate and sneaks a sneaky glance at their newfound nightmarish company. The toe of his boot manages to tap a large pile of hexagonal metal plates, which teeter, teeter, _topple_ to the ground with an astonishingly cacophonous crash.

“… Rorgac. Glakag. Why don’t you go lead our company into the main room with us?”

Frozen in terror, Sandra glares at Ford as two sets of stomping footsteps make their way to the archway. Ford starts to whisper a plan, but his sentence stops short when the duo emerge.

They’re tall, immediately noticeable— they tower over Sandra and Ford by nearly double their height. Both of them, willowy and vine-like, stare down at Sandra and Ford with huge, solidly white eyes, blinking like lizards with their membraneous eyelids.

“Well well,” starts one of them, the unrecognized voice; Glaxag. “Looks like two little humans got too curious for their own good.”

They’re steady-toned, impossible to read. A pale green, long-fingered hand picks up Sandra at the waist, lifting her closer to their scrutinizing stare. Their free hand hovers above the rope lasso’ed on their intricate tool-belt.

“Though _this_ little human… I do not recognize.”

“Yusdax— one of our trespassers is our six-fingered friend from ERS-5.”

Koosgirz starts stuttering a long strain of apologies to Yusdax about “I swear I saw him there” and “He could not have come back to Earth so soon” with a dash of “I am so incredibly apologetic, Yusdax, I should have caught him when I had the—“

They didn’t get the chance to catch Ford then, and they doesn’t get the chance to finish their sentence, as the bang and Koosgirz’s scream interrupts their excuse. The burning smell of alien flesh makes Sandra’s nose burn.

Yusdax looks just like their cronies; tall, pale green, long appendages like knives where fingers should sit. Though where Glaxag and Rorgac’s eyes gleam a brilliant white, Yusdax studies Ford and Sandra with black eyes, deep and near mesmerizing.

“What a pleasure to see you again, criminal 618. What was your name again? It was never important enough for me to remember.”

There’s two twin piles of dust in front of Yusdax’s feet. He steps through both with a foot each before stopping, arms folded behind his back.

“Ah, yes. Stanford Pines. That checks with the adolescent’s DNA on the button.” Yusdax slowly, agonizingly slowly, leans down until he’s mere inches from Ford’s face. “How could I forget the name of the _thief_ that took precious technology from us?”

“This place was _abandoned_ , don’t even try it.”

Sandra’s never heard Ford take that tone of voice before. Harsh, blunt, angry.

“What is that human saying? “Findings, keepings”?”

“Finders keepers, losers weepers,” Sandra corrects, and Ford twists to scowl at her in a silent but universal “what the hell are you doing?”. Yusdax turns their head and Sandra finds the reflection of her glasses in their stare.

“You. I do not recognize you.”

“Let’s keep it that way,” Sandra mutters.

“But, my manners have lost me in this moment. I thank you for reminding me of your human catchphrase.”

Yusdax straightens up, brushes dust off their elongated forearm.

“Finders keepers. Losers… weepers. Indeed.”

Rorgac— the alien with Ford in their hand— furrows their brow in thought.

“Why is that so important, Yusdax? It seems like a meaningless human saying to me.”

“Because, Rorgac, we found them. We shall kill them. And they, as the “losers”, will be the “weepers”. Do you follow?”

They loosen their grip on Ford as they think deeply about the third-grader chant and Ford wriggles, attempting a reach under his coat for the magnet gun. Sandra’s not sure how this will help, but she knows he’s going to need a distraction.

“So, it seems like you know English, yes?”

Glaxag flinches when Sandra tilts her head back to look up at him.

“… Yes, I do. We took voices from various humans when we arrived and made them our own.”

Ford’s still shimmying under Rorgac’s arms, the latter of whom is watching Sandra intently instead.

“Have you heard of Spanish? That’s another language from near the place Yusdax’s _delightful_ accent is from. I know it, see—“

Sandra launches into a long spiel of Spanish chatter, much to Glaxag and Yusdax’s surprise. She’s dictating how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but with a few extra rolls of her tongue and random words thrown in (“So you have to spread the jelly on the bread nice and thick, you giant ugly tree things, and then you all go to hell for putting us through this _mierda_ ” is one of her choice sentences) the three aliens are near hypnotized. Rorgac’s hold on Ford finally releases and he falls to the ground, lands in that super cool action-hero pose, and whips out his magnet gun. Yusdax lets out an almost T-Rex-like roar of fury when Ford’s magnet gun attempts to wrench their— what was it called? Arpolitzer, right— from their hand, and the sound shocks Glaxag so much that they drop Sandra mid-sentence.

“Do not stand there looking like _yawlinks_ lost in a field! Get them!”

Rorgac dives for Sandra’s feet but she hops out of their way, conveniently landing atop their fingers instead of inside them. They yelp and recoil, cradling their newly-injured hand in its mate, and in their fetal position on the floor they’re in the perfect place to trip Glaxag as they dash towards her. With the two aliens in a heap on the floor, she plucks the rope from Glaxag’s tool-belt and ties their wrists together behind their backs.

“What’s that thing Mabel always says… Oh, right. “Get wrecked”.”

Sandra sticks an impressive leap over Rorgac’s long legs before running to Ford’s aid as he wrestles Yusdax for the gun. He looks over his shoulder just before Yusdax aims a swing at his stomach, thankfully dodging to the left before it makes contact.

“Sandra, get out of here! I’ll take care of this!”

Him, Ford Pines, taking care of _this?_

She ignores Ford’s barrage of protests as he fights the alien and watches, waits for the moment she’s looking for. Yusdax easily dwarfs Ford’s (already much taller than her) form and leans over him, grabs him by the waist, and holds him high above their head triumphantly.

“Give up, Pines, I finally have you! Hand over the stolen technology or I will—”

At that precise, golden moment, Sandra frisbees one of the hexagonal disks that Ford tripped over into her chosen bullseye of Yusdax’s eye. Not exactly a hard target to miss, yet she jumps in victory regardless. Yusdax cries out in pain, both hands reaching to cup his newly poked eye, and Ford drops to the floor. Sandra grabs another rope (from Rorgac’s belt, the owner of which has fallen asleep) and ties Yusdax’s ankles together, knots the rope tight, and ducks out of the way as they slowly timber to the ground with a _thwack_. Their gun skids across the ground and slams into the wall, letting out a despondent beep before quite comedically exploding.

Yusdax makes a pathetic attempt at crawling to snatch Sandra’s leg and take her down, but she stomps on their shaking hand before it curls around her calf. They yelp, sigh in defeat, and slump against the floor.

“Now what will you do with us? Hm? The security drones have not worked since the last time you and your underling infiltrated,” Yusdax snarls, but they have a point. What will they do with three aliens tied up in ten-foot-long heaps on the floor?

“I have a sneaking suspicion that our dear _gordito_ might find some use for three aliens, Ford.”

He takes a beat to remember who _gordito_ is, but sputters into laughter when it clicks. Of course he would.

“I agree— The Mystery Shack’s been in need of a new exhibit,” Ford smirks, and Yusdax’s already pale face drains of what color it had left.

— — — — —

With two humiliated and dancing aliens (note that it’s not three, as Rorgac’s secret dream was to be a _star_ ) as his main attraction, Stan’s currently several miles over the moon with how many customers ( _paying_ customers, shockingly) file in to catch a glimpse of the trio of “definitely not animatronic and absolutely real” aliens. Which is actually true, but a few skeptical kids poke Glaxag’s foot to check, finding their chubby little youth cheeks flicked by one of their long toes. Definitely just a robot-y glitch, they decide.

The _one time_ the residents of this town don’t believe in one of Stan’s exhibits.

Sandra relays this to Ford in the basement, who subtly took samples from each of the three aliens to study in various jars. Skin samples, mostly: Yusdax initially refused, but Sandra threatened to cut one of their fingers off instead, so their obliged after that. Glaxag, surprisingly, willingly gave up a toe for Ford to study, as their toes regenerate like starfish limbs. Yusdax was just too proud to resign to that.

“Honestly, it’s unbelievable that the residents of this town don’t believe _this_ ,” Ford sighs, finishing his perfect cursive sentence and dropping his pen into a “#1 GRunkle” mug (pink permanent marker deducts that Mabel had some editing expertise).

“After they believed some of the other things he’s put out, they have to draw a line somewhere.” Sandra shakes her head, pushing her sunglasses up her nose. They’re indoors, so she doesn’t technically need them… but Mabel let her borrow some delightfully twinkly blue star-shaped frames. She has to wear those for a while. She just _has to_.

Ford’s silent for a moment as he stands, puts his hands in his pockets, and thinks. Sandra arches a brow in question, but waits until he finds his words.

“I wanted to thank you for… helping me today. I thought I could take care of Yusdax on my own, but you effectively subdued all three where I couldn’t.”

Sandra puffs her chest out in pride, but tries to remain humble with her reply of “Ah, it was nothin’, really. Just three ten foot tall aliens with— what were the guns called? Acolytes?”

“ _Arpolitzers_ , I believe.”

“Right, right.”

“But it was more than “just three aliens”, Sandra. To— To me, anyway.”

Ford’s one for thinking through his sentences before he speaks, which Sandra appreciates. He fidgets under her inquisitive stare.

“You showed me that you’re capable in the face of danger. When I was young, I would’ve panicked, worried myself into a stupor— but you… You knew exactly what to do.”

Yeah, totally! Definitely wasn’t whispering a string of expletives and several “ _madre de dios_ ”’s under her breath as she did her super cool and not improvised stunts. Nah.

“I wasn’t the youngest woman in space for nothing, _mijo_.” Sandra wants to run her fingers through Ford’s hair, but it’s way too high up. She votes on patting his arm instead. “I’m happy to help you out when you need my expert assistance.”

He laughs. “Sandra, I underestimated you. I’m sorry I didn’t think— well, I knew you _could_ , but I was worrying that—“

Sandra stops him with a call of his name, and Ford follows her beckoning finger as he bends to her level.

“Shut up for one moment, if you can.”

Ford goes to protest but Sandra cuts him short once more by standing on her toes and kissing him. Light, soft, nothing too scandalous, but when she pulls away they’re both cherry-cheeked. Ford chuckles— both of their sets of glasses are skewed on their noses.

“Well… if you insist.”


End file.
